Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Turns Out Republicans Don't Like Straight Talk

“I’m going to be real honest with you, the Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they’re going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats,” Ken Emanuelson said.

Emanuelson made the comment at a Battleground Dallas meeting. Texas GOP chairman Steve Munisteri started Battleground Dallas to counter the efforts of former Obama campaign staffers starting Battleground Texas. The demographics in Texas are changing. The state's Hispanic population is growing and Democrats know that. Republicans countered by creating Battleground Dallas. The result has been a tea party activist alienating black voters. We now see that Emanuelson is doing a serious backtrack.

"What I meant, and should have said, is that it is not, in my personal opinion, in the interests of the Republican Party to spend its own time and energy working to generally increase the number of Democratic voters at the polls, and at this point in time, nine of every ten African American voters cast their votes for the Democratic Party," he wrote on Tuesday.

That nonapology isn't any better. Emanuelson's walk back unintentionally does explain the mentality behind the voter suppression laws passed in red states. These laws do nothing to reform voting. The laws do create longer lines and a teacher treated like a criminal for attempting to register first time voters. Republican want people to have proof of both a driver's licence and voter ID card when casting a ballot. Yet they refuse to back a national motor voter bill. Why have people be able to register to vote when they get their driver's license? That would make voting too easy.